'No Other Land', The Film On Israel's Occupation Of Palestine Nominated For Oscar (X image @BtSIsrael )
A Palestinian film, exposing the brutality of Israel’s occupation in the West Bank has been nominate for Academy Awards. The film was nominated in the best documentary category. The film titled as No Other Land is helmed by Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham and Palestinian journalist Basel Adra. The film was shortlisted despite it not having ay distribution deal in the US.
The film, which has won the Documentary Film Award at the Berlin International Film Festival last February, mostly involves footages from Adra’s childhood showing his activist father bravely standing up against Israeli soldiers and settlers in order to stop appropriation of Palestinian land.
Abraham and Adra sparked backlashes after winning Berlin International Film Award, as they used their winners’ speech to condemn the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
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“I am free to move where I want in this land, but Basel, like millions of Palestinians, is locked in the occupied West Bank. This situation of apartheid between us, this inequality, it has to end”, Abraham said during the speech.
The speech sent shockwave throughout the German cultural establishment, and politicians issued condemnation of the duo. Berlin’s official online portal also faced backlash for claiming the film about Israel’s takeover in the occupied West Bank contained “antisemitic tendencies”.
Speaking to Middle East Eye, Abraham told that Germany’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian behaviour was making it extremely difficult for Jews and Israelis who wanted to see an end to the war on Gaza.
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Cementing the alleged notion of a censurious atmosphere in the entertainment industry, especially in the US, which seeks to curtail criticism against Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, the film find it difficult lock a distributor in the US. Despite the film’s positive critical reception, the struggle was real hard.
Underscoring the the struggle was film maker Brady Corbet’s remarks while receiving New York Film Critics Circle. At the end of his speech after receiving the award, Corbet, director of the film The Brutalist, which is a fellow nominee of No Other Land, said, “And the last thing I want to say is that it’s time to distribute No Other Land“.
